New Islamist push into central and southern Mali led by two charismatic
leaders who cut their teeth in country's northern conflict

A new Islamist push into central and southern Mali is being led by two charismatic leaders of a new Islamist armed group who cut their teeth in the country's northern conflict, according to security sources.

In the latest of a series of attacks outside the West African nation's traditional theatre of combat, two policemen and two civilians were killed on Saturday in the village of Bi, near the south-east border with Burkina Faso.

Investigators blamed the Macina Liberation Front (FLM), a new group that emerged earlier this year and has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks, some targeting security forces in central Mali.

Students in the art of guerilla warfare under the Tuareg warlord Iyad Ag Ghaly, Ansar Dine's leader, they returned to their respective homes, recruiting trainee jihadists from their own communities.

"We are actively looking for them. They are in contact with Iyad Ag Ghaly to sow terror in the centre and south of the country, but we have already dismantled a major part of these groups, which operate in tandem," a police commander told AFP.

Seven Malian jihadists arrested in August in neighbouring Ivory Coast and extradited admitted being members of Khalid Ibn al-Walid, according to a source close to the case, and to having taken part in jihadist attacks in southern and central Mali.

A large consignment of weapons was found at the home of another, a 33-year-old, considered the attackers' logistics expert.

Mali's decades-old Tuareg-led rebellion teamed up with armed Islamist extremists in the north in 2012 and declared independence for Azawad, the name they give their homeland, but the alliance was short-lived.